


Aftermath

by Eadgyth



Series: Of Wardens, Champions, and Inquisitors [4]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-26 18:35:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3860347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eadgyth/pseuds/Eadgyth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwen Hawke has done a lot of things and she has regrets that she will never openly admit too, but what she did before going to the Gallows that night was the hardest thing she has ever done. </p><p>One shot, stream-of-consciousness ramble through the mind of my very sad Hawke. My Cousland got the guy, my Champion was not so lucky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> This poured out after I finished playing my first run through of DA:2. I was playing towards this ending, I knew it was coming, but oh the feels. Actually cried while writing it, so yeah you may need those tissues.

          They were going to ask if I was okay. Once the dust settled, once the adrenalin left our respective systems, once the battle was over, they would all come to their senses, realize what I had done, and ask if I was okay. I didn't have an answer and for once in my life I did not have a blithe witty remark to cover the pain. Mother was right, father and I were a lot alike, we both covered our pain with mirth, we both swallowed our grief with laughter. Except I didn't want to laugh anymore. This whole situation was far from funny. It didn't need a joke.

           None of them, not even Varric had ever seen me cry, and the one man that did, the one man I let past that critical line of defense, well, he wasn't around anymore to help me through this, and he'd never be around again. At least not in this lifetime, maybe not even the next if the Chantry was right about such things.

           Carver would notice. He hated the way I made light of things, but he always knew when I was in pain. The second he looked at me after Meredith turned into that petrified grotesqueness, he would know and then they would all know. But Carver never looked at me, noticing instead the fresh batch of Templar's that charged into the yard and then looking to Knight-Commander Cullen for guidance. For his part, the Knight-Commander gave me a look, a look that told me he knew what I had done, knew what it cost me. In that pause before he back away and signaled the other Templars to do so, we recognized the haunted, brokenness inside one another. At that moment, I couldn't tell whose wounds ran deeper, mine or his. Mine, at least, were fresher.

           I did not envy the Knight-Commander. Kirkwall was more a war-zone now than it had been after the Qunari attack. It would take the city a long time to recover, and I would no longer be there to see that things got done when no one else wanted to bother. I had had enough of the city, enough of Templars, enough of my fellow mages, Void sod it all, I had had enough of humanity. Elves and Dwarves were not high on the list of people I wanted to be around either, and the Qunari, well they were certainly at the benighted bottom.

           Varric looked at me as I turned from the Gallows. But I avoided his gaze. I didn't want him to see. I would be worse than Caver noticing. Carver I could avoid, infuriate until he let me be. Varric, well he was my best friend if he had the slightest inkling something was wrong, that something had broken inside me when I...

           No, I couldn't think about that. But as soon as I did the memories were there. Suffocating me with soft brown eyes, a warm smile, and gentle, loving hands. I remembered every kiss. The soft ones on my forehead before I fell asleep. The inviting ones that started slow and then built into a consuming passion full of teeth, tongue, and soft moans. That first one, so desperate and wanting that it made my head spin.

           I must have stopped marching towards the docks, shook my head, or something because I heard Varric call my name. I felt my shoulders instantly slump with the fear that he had noticed, but then I straightened them, took a deep breath, turned, and looked at my friends.

           "Shit, Hawke why the hurry..." Varric's voice trailed off.

           Merrill looked at me with sad eyes, why did she always have to look like a lost puppy. It was maddening, especially when I knew her watery, wide-eyed pity was for me. Aveline gasped then swore. Sebastian may have muttered something Choir-boyish under his breath, or not. I never really understood his piety and complete disregard for the city to which he was now the rightful heir. Isabella, well she was long gone, having abandoned the group and me once we had served our purpose. I didn't really miss her at the moment.

           Fenris, well, that was a surprise that almost had me turning into a gibbering weeping idiot in front of everyone. His wide leaf green eyes looking directly into mine with the recognition of all that had come crashing down on me once the need for survival had passed. His eyes were not warm, or glazed with tears, or full of pity or scorn or any of the other hundred things I could have imagined in those green pools. But he knew, and his eyes narrowed, and then turned away as he spat, "Venhedis. Vishante kaffas!"

           It was like a switch went off in me, one moment I was staring up the stairs that lead away from the Gallows at my raggedy band of friends, the next I was staring into Fenris' eyes again, which were wide with anger and surprise as his tattoos surging to life as the lightly tanned skin of his cheek turned a dark smacked red.

           "Don't you dare," I growled.

           I didn't need any of it. Not Varric's friendly concern, Aveline's console, Sebastian's muttered pieties, or Merrill's pity. But I especially did not need Fenris' self-righteous smugness. I continued to glare at him until he looked away again. No one said anything, not even Varric, and I thanked the Maker for small mercies.

We made our way back to Kirkwall in silence after that. I think those might have been the last three words any of them heard me speak. 

           Except for Varric, Andraste herself couldn't shake that dwarf.


End file.
